Piano Concerto in c-sharp minor, Op. 45

Composer: BEACH, Amy Marcy Cheney
  • Amy Beach composed this concerto in 1899.1 It premiered on April 6, 1900, at Boston Symphony Hall. The Boston Symphony Orchestra performed, with Beach as piano soloist, and conductor Wilhelm Gericke.2
  • Beach dedicated this concerto to another woman composer and piano virtuoso: Teresa Carreño.3
  • This was one of the works Beach brought on her 1912 tour of Europe after her husband’s death in 1911. The concerto was performed in Leipzig, Hamburg and Berlin, to good reviews.4 
  • The concerto uses themes from several of Beach’s art songs:5
    • The first movement quotes her song “Jeune fille et jeune fleur,” Op. 1, No. 4. 
    • The second movement quotes “Empress of Night,” Op. 2, No. 3, a song with text by Beach’s husband H.H.A. Beach. 
    • The third movement is based on “Twilight,” Op. 2, No. 1, another song with text by Beach’s husband. She also dedicated this song to him. 
    • The fourth movement briefly recalls “Twilight” again, but ends the concerto in a positive, celebratory mood. 

Sources

  1. Adrienne Fried Block and E. Douglas Bomberger, “Beach [Cheney], Amy Marcy,” Grove Music Online (October 16, 2013), accessed July 1, 2021, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-1002248268. 
  2. “Piano Concerto, Op. 45 (Beach, Amy Marcy),” IMSLP, accessed July 1, 2021, https://imslp.org/wiki/Piano_Concerto%2C_Op.45_(Beach%2C_Amy_Marcy). 
  3. Ibid.
  4. Adrienne Fried Block and E. Douglas Bomberger, “Beach [Cheney], Amy Marcy,” Grove Music Online (October 16, 2013), accessed July 1, 2021, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-1002248268.
  5. Adrienne Fried Block, liner notes to Beach: Piano Concerto / ’Gaelic’ Symphony, Nashville Symphony Orchestra, Alan Feinberg, Kenneth Schermerhorn, Naxos 8.559139, CD, 2003.

Cut IDs

13297 24042 24058